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Hawking and Cox back fusion | 13/09/2010

Two of Britain's pre-eminent scientists have named fusion as the century's top scientific challenge.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper on 11 September, Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox agreed that fusion is an important priority in the search to meet increasing energy demands without endangering the planet.

Hawking said:

'Nuclear fusion...would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy without pollution or global warming. Many badly needed goals, like fusion and cancer cures, would be achieved much sooner if we invested more.'

Cox added:

'The provision of clean energy is of overwhelming importance. What frustrates me is that we know how to do [fusion] as physicists, how it works. It is an engineering solution that is within our grasp. I think the most important practical problem, which may be more of an engineering challenge than a scientific one, is to build economically viable nuclear fusion power stations. If we haven't dealt with our world's increasing appetite for energy by the end of this century, I think we will be in very deep trouble indeed.'